Year: 2025
Type: preprint
Abstract: Soft valves serve to modulate and rectify flows in complex vasculatures across the tree of life, e.g. in the heart of every human reading this. Here we consider a minimal physical model of the heart mitral valve modeled as a flexible conical shell capable of flow rectification via collapse and coaptation in an impinging (reverse) flow. Our experiments show that the complex elastohydrodynamics of closure features a noise-activated rectification mechanism. A minimal theoretical model allows us to rationalize our observations while illuminating a dynamical bifurcation driven by stochastic hydrodynamic forces. Our theory also suggests a way to trigger the coaptation of soft valves on demand, which we corroborate using experiments, suggesting a design principle for their efficient operation.
Source: arXiv (Cornell University)
Authors: He, Mengfei, Cho, Sungkyu, Dafflisio, Gianna, Emani, Sitaram, Mahadevan, L.
Language: English
Subfield: Mechanical Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W6979252565
Cites:
Cited by:
Related to: